Emptiness means that your mind is all stories. Your thoughts have no lasting reality, they come and go. You cannot predict what your next thought will be, not can you predict what you will dream tonight. Thoughts appear and disappear without volition.

"For example, let's take the appearance of a flower in a dream. This flower is not something that exists, that truly exists, because it's just a dream appearance - there's no real flower there whatsoever.

On the other hand, you can't say there's absolutely nothing, because there is the mere appearance of a flower - but just a mere appearance, that's it. That is its nature in terms of how it exists in the world of appearances. There's nothing really there but there is this mere appearance.

In a dream there's nothing substantial but there is the mere appearance of something substantial. Thus, its true nature transcends both existence and nonexistence. Its true nature is not something we can describe with these kinds of terms, because it is beyond any type of thing we might be able to think up about it. And so, just like a flower that appears in a dream, all phenomena that appear, wherever they appear, are the same.

They all appear in terms of being a mere appearance. There is nothing substantial to them, and their true nature transcends both existence and nonexistence and any other idea. All phenomena that appear to us in this life are exactly the same".

shel wrote:Nihilism does not mean any particular sort of mental fixation, such as fixation on the Buddhist concept of emptiness.

Really?

Nihilism (/ˈnaɪ.ɨlɪzəm/ or /ˈniː.ɨlɪzəm/; from the Latin nihil, nothing) is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. Moral nihilists assert that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived. Nihilism can also take epistemological or ontological/metaphysical forms, meaning respectively that, in some aspect, knowledge is not possible, or that reality does not actually exist.

I didn't write no fixation. I clearly wrote no particular sort of fixation. But more disturbing is the insinuation that emptiness has no meaning. The Buddha did not teach that life is meaningless. He taught that life is suffering and Eightfold Path is the way to the cessation of suffering.

muni wrote:"They all appear in terms of being a mere appearance. There is nothing substantial to them, and their true nature transcends both existence and nonexistence and any other idea. All phenomena that appear to us in this life are exactly the same".

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche

Shocking is the fact that honesty is enough to see that. Delusion arises from giving importance to different types of experience, and not treating all appearances as exactly the same. The question arises: what makes us intellectually differentiate phenomena into more and less important? Desire for control. We desire substantiality to grasp a phenomena, and we look for those which look more potent in changing reality. That's why people desire money and power so much. Now if we remove substantiality, we take away delusion of control, as phenomena are ungraspable and inconceivable. Why? Because as everything is interdependent, there is infinity to be grasped and conceived. Mind grasp after knowing more and more about it, and that creates suffering. That's something that needs to be let go of. But mind will not simply obey an order to let go. It needs to see that phenomena are inconceivable, until then it will strive for knowledge.

"First, before I forget I wanted to mention that I am in full agreement with you on the importance of translating an-atman as "no abiding self. In fact, the Chinese first translated this term with three characters, i.e., no - eternal - self. Later it was 'shortened' to just 'no-self' and, as you will see in my new attached article, this has contributed to yet more destruction!

None of this will amount to a hill of beans for those unconcerned with Buddhism. But for those who are concerned with Buddhism -- either by practice or as part of an intellectual toy box -- I think it is pretty important"Genkaku

The truth is over time translations sometimes lose there original meaning and people become fixed in their ideas. They argue endlessly instead of embracing the spirit of the teaching.

wisdom wrote:Oushi appears to be talking about "Sealing the view with the object of emptiness". This means that once a person has realized the truth of emptiness, rather than abiding within that emptiness without any conceptualization about it, they start labeling everything as "empty". This is empty, that is empty, I am empty, look at all the empty things!

Everything is empty, according to Buddhism. How could one thing be empty but not something else?

Sealing the view with the object of emptiness involves a conceptualization of emptiness rather than a direct realization of it. For example, someone sees an object and thinks "This object is empty" but that is *not* the experience of emptiness, nor its realization, just an intellectual understanding. Abiding in emptiness, there is no concept of it, nor are there any objects to label as being "empty" anymore because one is no longer engaging in mental projection, as the mind has withdrawn into its own true nature and mental projection and fixation has stopped.

shel wrote:According to Buddhism everything is empty, so if what you're saying is true then all Buddhist who haven't realized and 'abide' in emptiness are nihilists.That isn't right, right?

Not exactly. The difference is in whether or not the individual is aware that they only have an intellectual understanding. Its one thing to contemplate objects of the mind, which have been reified as real, and think "This object is empty" and in that way examine how and why its empty. Thats an intellectual process, and an important one. It can lead to realization of emptiness itself once conceptual elaborations are dropped, but the realization itself will be non-conceptual. This is in line with Buddhism and it is taught as a strictly intellectual exercise.

When someone only has an intellectual understanding of emptiness but thinks they have realized emptiness itself, then they become Nihilists because they have reified emptiness as being an object of the mind, which it is not. Therefore they "see" an object, which has been non-existent from the very beginning, and they "label" it as being "empty". This is a mistake.

wisdom wrote:Oushi appears to be talking about "Sealing the view with the object of emptiness". This means that once a person has realized the truth of emptiness, rather than abiding within that emptiness without any conceptualization about it, they start labeling everything as "empty". This is empty, that is empty, I am empty, look at all the empty things!

Everything is empty, according to Buddhism. How could one thing be empty but not something else?

Sealing the view with the object of emptiness involves a conceptualization of emptiness rather than a direct realization of it. For example, someone sees an object and thinks "This object is empty" but that is *not* the experience of emptiness, nor its realization, just an intellectual understanding. Abiding in emptiness, there is no concept of it, nor are there any objects to label as being "empty" anymore because one is no longer engaging in mental projection, as the mind has withdrawn into its own true nature and mental projection and fixation has stopped.

shel wrote:According to Buddhism everything is empty, so if what you're saying is true then all Buddhist who haven't realized and 'abide' in emptiness are nihilists.That isn't right, right?

Not exactly. The difference is in whether or not the individual is aware that they only have an intellectual understanding. Its one thing to contemplate objects of the mind, which have been reified as real, and think "This object is empty" and in that way examine how and why its empty. Thats an intellectual process, and an important one. It can lead to realization of emptiness itself once conceptual elaborations are dropped, but the realization itself will be non-conceptual. This is in line with Buddhism and it is taught as a strictly intellectual exercise.

When someone only has an intellectual understanding of emptiness but thinks they have realized emptiness itself, then they become Nihilists because they have reified emptiness as being an object of the mind, which it is not. Therefore they "see" an object, which has been non-existent from the very beginning, and they "label" it as being "empty". This is a mistake.

If ultimate truth exists in phenomena like form, the first aggregate (skandha), how can form be murderous?

In the context of the teaching ( Yamaka Sutta ), Venerable Sariputra is talking in regard to considering the skhanda (starting with form) as self. In this context they are murderous. According to Ven sariputra "...the instructed noble disciple, who is a seer of the noble ones..." considers the skhanda as impermanent, painful, selfless, conditioned and murderous and thus "He does not become engaged with form [and the other "aggregates of clinging"], cling to it, and take a stand upon it as 'my self'."

You see, if the ultimate is not "here and now", then where is it? If it is beyond the "here and now" then we cannot "connect to" or realise it "here and now", and so enlightenment in this life and in this body becomes impossible. Actually enlightenment within this realm of existence (samsara) becomes impossible. It would contradict the logic of the tetralema too.

Koji wrote: If ultimate truth exists in phenomena like form, the first aggregate (skandha), how can form be murderous?

By clinging to form.

Sure, I understand that. Because form is murderous. So if I let go of form I am not affected by its murderousness (in the Patisambhidamagga the Buddha names, if I recall, forty negative things about the skandhas). But I was curious as to how Greg's reply, "Ultimate truth does "exist in phenomena", "form is emptiness and emptiness is form" after all" fit in with the skandhas. The "form is emptiness part and emptiness is form" I am not following. Maybe I need a spot of tea to wake me up.